Are you afraid of getting older?
the exclusive reveal of Leigh Stein’s new novel cover
In 2020, I read Self Care, a hilarious, searing indictment of both wellness culture and the girlboss era. When I started posting on TikTok, I connected with the author, Leigh Stein, and found her refreshing, candid, and brilliant. Leigh and I became friends, and I often turn to her for her insightful takes on the intersection of writing, publishing, and social media.
I’m so excited that Leigh is choosing to reveal her cover on Telling the Bees. Her new novel, If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant For You, is a modern Gothic about an aging Millennial woman trapped with Gen Z creators in a decaying hype house (if you don’t know what a hype house is, bless you, but here’s a definition).
Below, Leigh and I discussed the horror of aging Millennials, growing up online, and how our collective anxiety about the state of the world is being reflected in art.
JL: Hi Leigh! I’m honored that you wanted to reveal your cover here. But before we do that, I wanted to ask about our cohort: we’re both Millennials. On TikTok, we’re currently going through a bit of a cultural resurgence, where Gen Z is idolizing the early 2010s and Obama era optimism.
On the flip side, so much of the content geared to us online is bent on capturing our collective fear around aging. While Gen Z is doing Botox and filler younger, we’re the exact target age for it. What do you make of the intense societal fear around aging, especially with your research around the world of wellness?
LS: In the fears around aging, I recognize a fear of irrelevance. The women I know who go to the med spa have always been beautiful—so for them, the natural effects of aging mean losing a form of currency that has helped them move through the world more fluidly. If you grew up with the message that beauty is one of your assets, I understand the anxiety about losing that!
The lessons I absorbed from my own mom were to value learning and being of service to others (not my appearance). I don’t have a lot of angst about my face, but I do have fears about remaining relevant and continuing to work in a creative industry. At 27, I published my first two books, and I was the beneficiary of all the buzz that attends the debut of a young writer. Of course at the time it felt like I “deserved” that buzz but now I better understand how we lavish attention on the young, the new, the beautiful (Mikey v. Demi). If Millennials must relinquish their status as the younger generation, they can pay to keep their beauty a little longer.
Keeping in line with this theme, I made a video in 2022 about the first wave of Millennials turning 40 and the endless think pieces we were subjected to. Growing up online, we’ve seen literally every iteration of this as Millennials turned 25, 30, 35, and now 40 on the internet.
Clearly the internet is reflected in your work and in this novel. I know you’re also a LiveJournal kid: how do you think growing up online affects your writing? Do you think it affects how you see the world?
I’ve been making friends on the internet since the late ‘90s and I don’t think I would have a writing career today without my early experience sharing poetry and short stories on Livejournal and getting feedback from an audience at a young age. The internet is the laboratory where I was made.
For two decades, I’ve been watching women document their inner experience in public. In my new novel, I’m trying to draw a lineage between self-portrait artists like Francesca Woodman, the digital photographers on early 2000s LiveJournal who were influenced by Woodman, and TikTok creators. The medium evolves but the instinct to post am I the only one who feels like this? remains.
I would be remiss not to mention the economic crisis we’re in right now. Millions of people are saying they can’t make friends, have hobbies, or go outside because they’re struggling to make ends meet.
Famously, Millennials are the first generation to be shut out of traditional markers of adulthood (as weddings and houses are now more expensive than ever). How do you see the collective anxiety around our financial situations manifesting itself online? Are we ready for the Millennial midlife crisis?
By now, the oldest Millennials have made a series of high-stakes decisions (where to go to school and how to pay for it, where to live, who to partner with, what to do for work, whether or not to have children). Looking ahead, the menu of possibilities is shorter. And everything’s more expensive. Sure, you can try to have a baby in your forties, or decide to pursue a career as a novelist—if you can afford it. There’s a sense of opportunity narrowing.
I think the elder Millennial midlife crisis is already here.
Finally, in keeping with the theme of anxiety, one thing that’s interesting to me is this idea of control: so much of our media is about asceticism, denial, and restraint.
I think back to the early aughts “eat this not that!” culture and the clean girls of 2025, subsisting on berries and collagen in order to “stay strong”. Do you think the anxiety around aging is just another outlet for our societal obsession with control?
The word “asceticism” always makes me think of religious ascetics like Simone Weil, who denied herself nourishment for spiritual and political reasons. Religious affiliation continues to decline: in the most recent Pew data, 44% of 18-29 year olds identify as religiously unaffiliated (compared to 36% in 2014) and 37% of 30-49 year olds identify the same (compared to 25% in 2014). Political beliefs have come to fill the void left by faith, and therapy replaced confession, but the beauty and wellness industries are also doing their part to sell us rituals that promise salvation. There are so many reasons why Americans are less religious than ever, but one consequence of losing faith in a higher power is a self-centered culture, and an extreme example of this is Bryan Johnson’s quest to make himself an immortal god.
Josh, thank you so much for helping me share the cover of my new novel! It’s partly a comedy of content creators like Margo’s Got Money Troubles and partly a Gothic mystery about a missing influencer, like a 21st century Rebecca. I usually have to explain the title, but I have a feeling your audience will understand it comes from TarotTok. 🔮
Thank you for reading! If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant For You is out on August 26 and is available for preorder now. This isn’t a commission link or an ad! Truly just doing this because Leigh is a friend and I’m excited for her novel. You can find Leigh on Substack, Instagram, and TikTok.
First: WOW I love that book cover. The vintage Nancy Drew vibes are impeccably done. As an author who knows firsthand how ugly book covers can be (and how little control the writer has over the final choice!), huge kudos to the publisher for that design.
Second, while fear of aging is a universal and time-honored anxiety, I do see where Millennials have it weirdest. Y'all were the first generation who realized the American Dream simply wasn't attainable for most. Growing up Gen X, we caught the tail end of feasibility... getting your undergrad was still sorta worth it and accessible in the mid-90s. You could still maybe get a job and buy a starter home in the early 00s. But by the recession in the late 00s, it became clear the American Dream was a lie. A lie that caught Millennials between their student loans and parents basements.
The best advice I can offer about aging fears (as someone turning 50 in May) is to have a major health scare that makes you realize that getting older is a huge privilege. The sooner and more fully you can accept the inevitability of death (and the aging/disability that comes before it), the more energy you can clear up to notice the joy of the present moment. Avoiding the idea of death takes HUGE amounts energy... when you free that energy up by accepting the inevitable as a gift, the more energy you have to enjoy the time you've got.
you’re the best 🐝